Atlanta
There are 5,244 properties scheduled for public foreclosure sale this month in metro Atlanta, the second-highest total ever for the area, according to statistics released by Equity Depot, a real estate information company. The record was set just last month, when 6,809 foreclosed homes were scheduled for sale, a 36 percent increase over November 2006 totals. The 53,365 foreclosure sales scheduled so far this year are well above the 44,971 recorded in all of 2006, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Global investment manager Invesco, which has a $504 billion portfolio of currency, stocks and real estate, is relocating its headquarters from London to Atlanta, where it began almost 30 years ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The company employs 5,300 people in 19 countries. It will consolidate space at its two existing midtown Atlanta offices into seven floors at the 300,000-square-foot, 18-story building at Two Peachtree Pointe.
Boston
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has proposed a $1.1 billion bond bill, with half of the funds to go toward updating state-owned public housing projects. Believed to be the largest affordable housing bill in the state’s history, the proposal is part of a five-year capital plan the governor unveiled over the summer. The proposal calls for $200 million to support Massachusetts’ Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and $175 million would go to the Housing Stabilization Fund, the Boston Globe reported.
Officials have approved a $1.5 billion, 4.5 million-square-foot mixed-use project in Westwood, a suburb just south of Boston. The project would be the largest suburban mixed-use development in the history of the state. Westwood Station is planned for the site of a 1960s industrial park at the interchange of Interstates 93 and 95. It will feature 1,000 condos, up to 10 office buildings, a hotel, restaurants, retail and 12,500 parking spaces, the Boston Globe reported. The project, slated for completion by 2016, is expected to attract roughly 55,000 vehicles per day, raising concerns over pollution and traffic problems.
Chicago
CMK Development Corp. broke ground on a 48-story, 714-unit residential high-rise at 235 West Van Buren Street, the largest downtown Chicago condominium development since the mid-1970s. In about a six-month period, CMK, which reported the most sales among Chicago-area residential developers in the third quarter, signed buyers for 365 of the units. Studios start at $179,000, and two-bedrooms at $284,900; the average unit is selling for about $325 per square foot, Crain’s Chicago Business reported.
Detroit
Oakland County, a Detroit suburb, announced that taxable property values will fall this year for the first time in at least 22 years. Ranked as the fourth-wealthiest county in the U.S. among counties with populations of more than 1 million people, the growth in taxable property in Oakland dropped from 5.2 percent to a projected -0.3 percent from 2004 to 2007, the Detroit Free Press reported. In 2004, the county had 2,168 foreclosures. That number shot up to 4,855 in 2006, and this year, it is expected to hit the 8,000 mark.
Las Vegas
A CB Richard Ellis report said the retail vacancy rate in Las Vegas remained among the lowest in the country during the third quarter, at 4.57 percent. To keep up with population growth of 6,000 people per month, developers added nearly 1.5 million square feet of retail space in the quarter, with 7.2 million square feet under construction, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
The average residential asking rent in Las Vegas is expected to rise 3.6 percent to $859 by year’s end, according to Marcus & Millichap, while a 5.2 percent vacancy rate is forecast for the end of the year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Meanwhile, CB Richard Ellis said the city had a somewhat higher apartment vacancy rate of 7.7 percent in September, down from 7.9 percent the previous month. The high-end market, which comprises 28,500 units, had a 6.7 percent vacancy rate.
Los Angeles
The median price for a Southern California home in October was $444,000, the lowest since April 2005, according to a report by DataQuick Information Systems. That represents a 3.9 percent drop-off from the previous month and an 8 percent decline from the same period last year. The median price of a home in Los Angeles County dropped 3.8 percent, while Riverside County home values declined 15.1 percent. Meanwhile, the number of homes sold in October plummeted to a 20-year low, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A Portland, Ore.-based builder has become the largest developer of new residential buildings in downtown Los Angeles, as it finishes its third high-rise building there — with two more in the works. South Group has invested $750 million in condominium developments downtown, undaunted by news of a shaky statewide housing market. The developer, which has sold more than 470 units in the area with prices ranging from the mid-$300,000s to $2.4 million, was the first company in more than 20 years to build ground-up, high-rise condos downtown, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Phoenix
Home sales in Phoenix were up to 3,610 in October from 3,050 in September, but were still far below the numbers from previous years. Total sales for the month were down nearly 40 percent from the 4,985 deals recorded in the year-ago period, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. By October 30, 44,410 sales were posted for the year, compared to 57,373 in the first 10 months of 2006 and 97,170 during the same period in 2005. The median home price fell to $242,000 from $257,000 in the year-ago period.
San Francisco
Cargill Inc., owner of one of the largest undeveloped swaths of the San Francisco Bay shoreline, wants to build housing on the 1,433-acre site, but environmentalists say the property should be protected. Cargill has been using the Redwood City site to produce commercial salt, and officials said it would be able to develop the land if at least 50 percent is first restored to its natural habitat. Cargill will not submit a proposal for the site until next year, and construction probably wouldn’t begin for at least another few years, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Seattle
A Washington State University report released last month said the Seattle area’s condominium market is faring much better than the single-family home sales market. Single-family home sales were down 25 percent in King and Snohomish counties compared to a year ago, while condo sales were down only 15 percent, the Seattle Times reported. Condos have been more affordable than houses: the median price of condos sold in King County this year is $286,000, 38 percent less than the $459,500 for houses.
Washington, D.C.
While delinquencies on residential mortgage payments rise throughout the country, not a single commercial mortgage originated in Washington, D.C., and then securitized, was delinquent through the end of the third quarter, according to a report by Standard & Poor’s. Delinquencies on commercial mortgage-backed securities increased 16.2 percent elsewhere in the country from the second quarter, though they remained historically low, at 0.29 percent of all loans, the Washington Post reported. Office mortgages accounted for 77 percent of the area’s repackaged loans reviewed by S & P.